" While "people's war" militia-based strategies have been employed to wear down invading armies in numerous countries over the past century, not one of those countries (Vietnam, Afghanistan, Somalia, Iraq, southern Lebanon, etc) is "free". "

This article in awash is illogical arguments. First he says, in so many words, he believes in the Constitution. Then he blasts the simplicity of the 2nd Amendment. Then he thinks you can vote the ballot box even if a dictator comes in; and using arms again any domestic government is treason? Then what is the point of defending against foreign and domestic enemies?
How does one fight a foreign enemy? With guns. You fight the DOMESTIC enemy, if he takes away your rights, WITH GUNS, ACCORDING to the BILL of RIGHTS! You won't be able to go to the ballot box! Get it! Why would it be there if its for hunting and home defense? They were doing that for hundreds of years!
We had just fought a war that started by British troops moving towards Lexington to confiscate guns; that were owned by citizens! The war taught us that disarming people caused possibilities of abuse of power as in Europe! and we didn't want to do that again!
Read what the Founding Fathers said - Google it. No misunderstanding there if you want to read the FACTS about what the creators said about it all! Oh, I forgot; you do not wish to be confused by the facts!
The facts are that the nation; be it 150 million or 300 million, can disarm an army. And do you really think the Armed Forces would sit idly by, enforcing rules like the abandonment of the 2nd Amendment, etc. Don't count on it. In a war, when you kill your enemy, that is better armed than you, you pick up his weapon and give yours to someone who has none. You can talk about no one winning with militias, but we did and we were not any kind of country.
By the way, when Argentina fought Great Britain over the Falklands, the British and Argentinian soldiers both had FN FAL's; the British had semi-auto ones and the Argentinians had ones with selector switches for full auto fire. Tell me, who won?
You know as much about warfare as you do fornicating (General Patton said that re some journalists).

Not sure if anybody has addressed the falsity of the author's claim that the US constitution does not guarantee the right of the American people to overthrow a tyrannical government. The constitution does in fact state "when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government".

LaPierre is a an idiot, he certainly does not represent the opinion of the majority of gun owners in the USA. That is like saying that Lanza represents and acts like all of the legal, responsible gun owners in the USA.

I know it was in response to LaPierres statement that was made a week after the shooting. What an a_____e he is. Please do not make the mistake of including all believers in the second amendment in this catagory.

To all of the people have posted....it has been very interesting reading the points of view presented here. Remember that we can have this discourse because we have freedom to do so granted by the constitution and its subsequent amendments....for now that is!

At the time of this writing there are discussions at the whitehouse with both the President and Vice President over gun control. The comments this morning were disturbing.....the Vice President stated that the Administration is most likely going to use Executive Orders to institute what they believe are reasonable restrictions.

By doing this they circumvent both the House and Senate and also the constitution....so what will be next?????

If a President can invoke his personal beliefs on 300 Million people by executive preference and violate the constitution which he has sworn to defend we have a real problem. Last I checked law making was that task of the Congress of the United States not the executive office. So do we have a dictator in the making?

What's next? Lets just suspend Congress for 6 months and see what else we can shove through. We are at risk of being RULED NOT GOVERNED. This is precisely what this argument is all about.

I am a gun owner. I have used one of my handguns to stop a home invasion in progress [ work nights ] by armed men. There were four of them and at least two of them were armed with firearms [ pistol, shotgun ]. They apparently were not willing to risk theselves eventhough they outnumbered me. Police were unable to protect me [ 20 minute response time ], nor were they able to catch the "suspects". To me, my guns are an insurance pollicy against something like that happening again. I pray that I never have to pick up that gun for that purpose again, but it is there if I or my family need it. I started to keep a gun in the bedside table after a hurricane struck a large city just south of where I live a few years ago. The actions of many of the people that came through the town where I live convinced me that I needed to do something to protect my family and property. The behaviour of people was apalling, and this after only a hurricane, with only a limited impact and a return to normalcy within a few months. What would they do if the situation was much worse? What if thing were never going to be the same again? No electricity, running water, gasoline, food on the shelves, and no police to stop them because instead of only a few it was thousands desperate to survive. And what kind of parent would I be if I didn't protect my family the best that I could and prepare them for their future when these thing are all to likely to happen? Remember that most people are 3 to 4 days of starvation away from killing you to take what you have and then even eating you! I will defend my right to keep my guns to protect my family and myself from YOU!

"What if thing were never going to be the same again? No electricity, running water, gasoline, food on the shelves, and no police to stop them because instead of only a few it was thousands desperate to survive. And what kind of parent would I be if I didn't protect my family the best that I could and prepare them for their future when these thing are all to likely to happen? Remember that most people are 3 to 4 days of starvation away from killing you to take what you have and then even eating you! I will defend my right to keep my guns to protect my family and myself from YOU!"

Adam Lanza's mother subscribed to similar survivalist fantasies. It was her desire to protect her family from the impending end of civilization that motivated her to stock her house with weapons and ammunition. We all know how that turned out.

Reality: Mass shooters with semi-automatic weapons of war, and large capacity clips.

FANTASY: A dystopian future where a tyrant has managed to dismantle and take over American Democracy, zombie apocalypse or other end of civilization type scenarios straight out of pulp science fiction.

So which should we concentrate on? Reality, or the demented over active imaginations of some people?

The best you have to offer are silly semantics?
How ironic that you can use that argument, slip in an ad hominem, and use 'uneducated' all at the same time.

Nobody needs to use a Bushmaster 223 for home defense, or hunting. That leaves personal recreation (competitions etc), and the nuts who think they have the "constitutional right" to someday shoot other American's when the mythical tyrant takes over. For many Americans, those are not valid reasons to allow carte blanche access to 'weapons of war'. My argument stands: We are in the end comparing reality with the deranged imaginings of an overly vocal minority.

You do realize the holocaust and several other atrocities have happened within the last 100 years, and have always happened throughout history? What makes you so certain that it wouldn't happen again? You trust the federal government to take care of everything for you? I feel truly bad for anyone you are responsible for.

You do realize the holocaust and several other atrocities have happened within the last 100 years, and have always happened throughout history? What makes you so certain that it wouldn't happen again? You trust the federal government to take care of everything for you? I feel truly bad for anyone you are responsible for.

..The whole thing is/was a Government set-up ( Sandyhook) ..and Adam Lanza was DEAD weeks before that debacle.I cannot understand how gullible some people are..! They have this one photo- ONE , MIND YOU..- that they show over and over again...of this ' ghostly looking individual ". And the scenes on TV ?? Still shots. No real " live footage"...ALL A HOAX to help further Obozo'z AGENDA OF BECOMING DICTATOR...BY DIS-ARMING THE POPULACE> WAKE UP you morons. WOW. I am a Blonde and have had this guy figured out from the day I laid eyes on him !!! HE IS an American - Hating , egoist and his only agenda is overtaking the U.S. WITH HIM AS ITS ' RULER"...GET HIM OUT OF OFFICE.

This whole subject is remarkable for its lack of quantitative analysis. As with all political questions in the USA it is important to determine who is gaining influence from the transfer of money. It is particularly important when presented with an emotional issue like the right to own and use guns. When this kind of issue presents itself the arguments on either side lose their focus on concrete facts and descend into wordy arguments which are designed to confuse the electorate. Simple questions like how much money in campaign contributions does the issue generate? In other words, who is buying Congressional influence. Which commercial enterprises profit and by how much. How many deaths are directly attributable to the current gun laws and constitutional provisions. These are the types of questions which should be asked, and clearly they are not.

I would add that there appears to be little to no quantitative analysis of the return on investment of proposed measures (effectiveness vs. costs, to include unexpected consequences). gun control measures do not appear to reduce crime, and relaxations of those measures (despte dire predictions of the bloodbaths to come) do not appear to increase crime. we need some sober policy analysis from neutral parties, and not just rhetoric from the NRA and VPC.

I suppose you have to define what you mean by gun-control. At the moment, gun-control applies to new purchases and acquisitions. However over the years the United States is built up an inventory of 300 million guns, and this has taken into account.

Every year, 600,000 guns are lost or stolen from private owners. In the majority of states the gun owner is not required to make any report concerning the loss. I wonder how many of these thefts result from a desire to defend themselves against any intruder by leaving a loaded weapon on the night table. By doing so they forgo the normal protection afforded by a lockbox.

In addition they every year, 30,000 guns are stolen from dealers. Dealers are required by federal law to report these losses.

With this number of illegal guns entering the market every year it is not surprising that the current laws on gun control seem to have a very little effect. The NRA seems to be remarkably quiet on this topic. If they advocate what are regarded as normal measures for the storing of guns then that they would forgo the immediate protection aspect.

In my view the penalties for using an illegal gun in the commission of a crime are not sufficient. I would also require any gun owner to register the weapon and carry insurance for each weapon that he or she owns. The insurance, would provide compensation for any third party who suffers injury or loss as a result of the use of any gun which is registered to a given owner. I see this kind of provision working very much like the insurance that one normally carries on a car. I do not think you can get away from the fact that a gun owner has an obligation to take all reasonable precautions to protect society at large.

Your ideas are unrealistic. If the law were to change and it became mandatory to register weapons, have insurance on them etc etc, I would simply report my weapons stolen. And of course hang on to them. Like you said, firearms disappear all the time, and mine would to.
"I wonder how many of these thefts result from a desire to defend themselves against any intruder by leaving a loaded weapon on the night table." As someone who served as a police officer myself, I don't understand where you're coming from. Are you trying to say that police officers should keep their weapons locked up at all times as well? Also, how would a weapon get stolen from someone's night table, as you put it, unless the owner had been killed? Are you saying the person would sleep through the burglary and the theft of the firearm from their own night table? Again, I don't understand. I sleep with my firearm "on my night table" all the time, and it has yet to be stolen.
And sorry, but the argument that "stuff gets stolen, therefore that stuff should be illegal". When you break them down to their logical conclusion, your ideas don't hold water.

How is it that "someone who served as a police officer" can be unaware that success in burglary constitutes going in when nobody's home? Don't burglars love to find pistols in nightstands? They're small, easy to hide, and probably sell for good money from the fence (unless, of course, the burglar gets ambitious and thinks it's time to graduate to armed robbery....)

Not to be too personal, but are you really saying you would file a false police report rather than comply with any new gun law? If so, it's a good thing you got out of law enforcement. If you can't obey the law, you shouldn't take money to enforce it.

It is you, sir, and other over-educated derelicts who are treasonous. This nation still has a significant population who have pledged or sworn an oath to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Take a moment and study the Battle of Athens, August 2, 1946 for a modern example of relevance and importance of the Second Amentment.

Nowhere in the second amendment does it use the term "guns." Tanks, hand grenades and nuclear warheads are also arms. So are we to believe that we as citizens have the right to bear these types of arms as well? If you are a purest, then you must take into consideration what the word "arms" meant in 1790. Arms, at the time of the writing of the 2nd amendment meant muskets, swords and bayonets. I think we as a society can, and should regulate any and all arms that have been developed since that time.

I suspect M.S. of being a touch disingenuous here, since the term militia, as used by western writers from Machiavelli through the mid-19th century was understood to mean a national army composed of all able-bodied male citizens in a certain age range; 18-45 being a fairly typical example. This is pretty much the model used by the Swiss, who last I checked, still have a thriving democracy, high rates of private gun ownership, and low rates of gun violence against others, though suicide is an acknowledged problem.

Though I strenuously disagree with M.S., I applaud his honesty in the final paragraph. Let's have that argument, rather than dancing around what the second amendment does or doesn't guarantee, or the original purpose.

...and Switzerland just had an American-style spree shooting (as noted in other comments). Perhaps Newtown is inevitable for countries with "Switzerland-style" liberal gun policy in a country of 300 Million people trained to adulate its armed forces, and a decidedly non-Switzerland, get all up in everyone's biznasty, cowboy foreign policy.

for the record, 10 USC § 311 - Militia: composition and classes
contains a definition of the "militia." it is: all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard.

If you want to use a country like Switzerland as a model of any policy, it's only logical to take into account our much larger, more diverse population to be realistic. Then again, pro-gun arguments have been anything but logical or realistic; of which your minimalist position is a prime example.

While I will not profess to being overly familiar with the details and nuance of Swiss gun law, it doesn't seem notably more stringent than the laws here in Massachusetts, and indeed seems to be more liberal in some regards. Regardless, I was mostly trying to point out a modern, functional example of a classically defined militia. Whether what works in a culturally homogeneous country that one can drive across in less than a day works here is debatable. Of course, one of the interesting aspects of our federal system is that laws don't need to be universally applied, so solutions that are practical and reasonable in Wyoming do not need to be made to work in NYC. Control of interfaces between different polities becomes an issue, but that is an already existing problem.

No problem... You may find this interesting.
A quick run down of some of the Swiss gun laws:

1. The militia have their issued weapons at home, but no ammunition. They used to issue that as well, but not any more. So they have a very large per capita gun ownership, but very few bullets. Only special military units, and military police can legally keep ammunition for military type weapons.

2. Full auto weapons are not allowed after your term of service is completed. You can keep your issued weapon, but it has to be modified to only be semi-auto. The serial number is recorded with your personal information.

3. Ammo for these semi-auto weapons can only be sold, and used, at shooting ranges. Other types of ammo are recorded at point of sale with your name, date, amount, etc.

4. As a result of militia service, virtually all gun owners have had extensive gun safety training.

5. To carry a gun in public, if you're not a member of the active militia, you need a permit, which is typically only issued to security guards etc. Hunters do not need a permit.

6. You may not transport a loaded weapon.

7. There are criminal prosecutions for violations of these various gun laws.

I see many examples of other nations with civil war / struggles against oppressive regimes being used as a warning that the U.S. citizens couldn't win against an oppressive take over by government. Against a full out military campaign, there would be little or no chance; however, the whole point of having an armed society is the deterrence value. In this case, there is a substantial deterrence value. What the numerous comparisons fail to acknowledge is that the nations such as Congo, Syria, Libya, etc. have never had the form of Republic that we have in the U.S. While our Western sentimentalists wish to believe that we can spread this so-called democracy throughout regions that have no concept of endowed rights and individual liberty, some do have an understanding that we are very fortunate to live in such a unique nation that is founded on those principles. While the Pollyanna libs want to espouse this majoritarian democracy our individual liberty is not based on the 51 percent being able to abuse the 49 percent. Let's face it, while the deaths of innocent individuals, especially children is a horrible tragedy and heinous crime, there are much greater killers of the innocent that get a pass because of the media. Over 600 people a year killed by knives... I've yet to see a Hollywood PSA against knives. The hypocrisy and self-righteousness out there knows no bounds.

I agree fully. For people to compare Militia movements in other 3 rd world countries to the militia that won us the the rights we have in this country is a ridiculous comparison. The reason we are what we are is because from the very begging the Constitution was drafted to ensure that this country would not impose the same restrictions on freedom and rights that the European country's had created with their antiquated Feudal systems. Those societies never allowed the population in general to advance socially and financially en masse. Rather they were stuck in a rigid class system, some of which still exists today.

The US Constitution was intended to be a plan that was years ahead of its time, in many ways it still is.....I would venture to say that Barack Obama would never have had the opportunities in Europe that he has had in the USA. In Europe Barack Obama would never have been elected president, prime minister or rise to any similar position as those barriers and institutions created in Europe would prevent this type of opportunity from happening even to this day.....(this will cause some discussion I am sure)

The USA as a nation has evolved much quicker than any modern nation into a superpower. Much of the wealth and creative energy that has built this country is because of opportunity. These opportunities did not exist in Europe and to some extent still don't. The Constitution allowed any person to aspire to anything.....it granted people rights that they never had in Europe.

I know that now I am going to get the slavery issue thrown in my face.....Ponder this.... How long did it take the European nations to evolve from a Class segregated society dictated to by the Church and Monarchies?

Someone correct me if my timeline is incorrect.....1500 years +/-, give or take a century or two or three.....Well we did it between 1776 and 2008....that's less than the margin of error stated above.

The US Constitution empowered the individual, provided opportunity, broke down the barriers of the European style institution of serfdom (AKA Slavery) and social classification. While not perfect it has worked very well. So the point here is....

When our constitution states the word MILITIA - do not presume to associate the choice of wording with the rest of the worlds modern rag tag, tribal, dictator driven, foreign funded, politically driven thirst for absolute power that is the current norm for a militia.

The unfortunate people in the 3rd world did not start with the rights we have, have not lived in a free society and have no choices other than those force fed to them. Had these countries had something similar to the US Constitution it is fair to say there would be far fewer 3rd world aid dependent nations and a few more economic power houses, especially in Africa.

Whatever the reasons are for the success of the USA and its people, some of that success was because there is an implicit guarantee that the constitution and rights would be protected for all. Perhaps that is why the 2nd amendment was so drafted and was THE SECOND RIGHT CONFERRED after freedom of Speech and religion. While at the time tyrants would use muskets and swords, the framers did not specify what arms, simply the right to bear arms, is it possible that the framers too knew that weapons would advance. Therefore by stating the "Right to Bear Arms" their intent was to allow the People(aka-the Militia) to have access to the same weapons that a modern day tyrant /army would deploy.

So a militia can never win against a super power? Last time I checked our Continental Army during the revolution fought the British with their OWN personal firearms, and acquired other weapons as the war went on. And they knew that to protect our freedom we would always need an armed populace. And don't use Vietnam, Chile, and other small countries who were poor and didn't own any guns to prove that militia's cant protect people from authoritarian governments. Nazi Germany didn't have a militia to fight, since they already had strict gun control. And just look at afghanistan, we are losing against the weakest enemy we have ever fought, no standing army, no navy, no air force. You certainly don't know your history, our founding fathers did, and I will take their wisdom over yours anyday. You want my gun? Come get some.

The American minutemen and the British soldiers were both using the same flintlock muskets. There were no tanks or airplanes back then. The situation is completely different from today.

The reason that the USA is having difficulty in Afghanistan is because our goal is to set up a sympathetic government in a country that is enormously unsympathetic and that isn't the type of problem that can be readily solved with violence. We have around 68,000 soldiers in a country of over 30,000,000 people. If the USA truly set its goal as utterly destroying Afghanistan, we could. If the USA mobilized for total war the way we did during WWII, we could easily subdue Afghanistan and could have done the same for Vietnam. But, the USA is instead devoting only a small section of our military to Afghanistan and focusing mostly on other things because frankly Afghanistan is a very low priority. The American military has only lost about 2000 soldiers in Afghanistan. No one even hazards a guess at the countless thousands of Afghanis that have been killed in this conflict.

The Nazis actually reduced gun control while they were in power (except for Jews of course). They weren't overly concerned with armed citizens. Remember that the Nazis had their own militia in the form of the Brownshirts. If an authoritarian regime rises to power in a country with militias, it would court some of the militias and use them against the others. The European country that has the highest rate of firearm ownership is Serbia (not Switzerland); a country best known for its corruption, faulty democracy, and ethnic violence. So it seems that militias are more likely to use violence against each other than against an authoritarian state.

No, the Nazi's decreased the registration requirements for a citizen to get a gun's license and gun ownership actually increased.
Do you think it would have made any difference if the Jews had guns? IF they shot some brownshirts it would have just made the Germans hate them more and devote more resources to exterminating them.
In Serbia the Albanian minority is allowed to own guns and many do, but the only thing that saved them from extermination at the hands of the heavily armed Serbian majority was intervention by a real military.
The right to own guns does not protect a minority from an armed majority.
"We who believe in the 2nd amendment are willing to die for it, if you believe it is wrong, are you willing to die trying to take it away from me?"
I was going to make a snide remark, but honestly I just want to understand. How could you be so passionate about a simple weapon to be willing to sacrifice your life to preserve your right to have it? The entire idea of having a gun for self-defense is to preserve your life. Dying for the right to self-defense is self-defeating. Dying for the right to play with a dangerous toy is equally absurd. How do you develop these strange convictions?

For some reason we have the misguided purpose of nation building before, during and after we intervene in a country. We seem to have become the worlds 911 call. If we respond we are ridiculed, if we don't respond we are despised.....So what do we do, more of the same. You are correct in you statement that if we really wanted to we could destroy or subdue any nation. But then we would be no better than Nazi Germany, China, Russia under Stalin, or The idiots in Serbia and modern day Africa and Asia.

For some reason we continue to interfere in countries that have never had freedom and then try to impose our form of Democracy and government on nations of people that have no idea what to do with freedom. These same countries often disintegrate into a nation that starts ethnic cleansing...very sad situation. That is how the Militias you relate to are born, they are born out of intervention and interference of outside nations and influences.

The modern day militias you describe are thugs, there never aspired as a group to unite all the people's of their countries. The choose to commit genocide and other atrocities against their own populations in an endless quest for power....

In a country like the USA, the People are inherently good! While they may disagree often, they do not resort to massacres on the scale of those seen in the rest of the world. We have some looney tunes types, with 300 million people that is inevitable. However I will trust the people of the USA over the politicians who think they know better.

There is no justification for Sandy Hook. However to impose one persons belief on 300 million people is also wrong.

We have a process for amending the constitution. The President cannot do it. The process is clearly stated in Article V.. 2/3rds of both houses shall propose amendments, or on application to the legislature 2/3rds of the states can call for a sates convention. Then 3/4ths (38) of the States legislatures must ratify the amendment.

The President of the United States cannot by executive order amend or redefine a constitutional right. If he could we would be no different as a country than those you have mentioned in previous postings. I will take my chances on the people and the constitution.

My only point about our ability to destroy Afghanistan is that we are constrained more by ourselves than by the militias. If we tossed out that restraint, the militias would be powerless to stop us.

The militias in Afghanistan were born of the prior existing tribes and religious militant groups. The USA equipped them when Afghanistan was invaded by the Soviet Union. We weren't policing the globe or trying to spread democracy at that moment in time. We were trying to prevent our greatest enemy and rival in history from expanding its power and territory. Nothing wrong with that. But these groups did desire to unify their country. The Taliban wanted to unify Afghanistan as a brutal theocracy and the United Islamic Front wanted to unify Afghanistan as a Muslim democracy. Of course nothing like this could happen in the USA.

Serbia was a completely different situation. They had a functional government in the 1990's and they had a highly armed population. The entire country was gripped by nationalism in the wake of the disintegration of Yugoslavia. Well-armed Serbian nationalists enthusiastically engaged in the ethnic cleansing of Albanians who had weapons of their own but where horribly outnumbered. The USA acted as the world's police by bombing the Serbians to save the Albanians, but the USA and foreign intervention had nothing to do with the formation of militias or anything like that.

I don't think the American people are inherently good. We are just the immigrants and descendents of immigrants from all over the world. During the 1800's, the Americans committed genocide and ethnic cleansing against the native population. Prior to the Civil War the USA practiced slavery (one of the most brutal institutions in history that many people continue to white wash through false analogies) on a scale surpassed only by Brazil. After the Civil War, the races were divided in the South through an aparthied system for a hundred years. On top of that is the USA's long list of unjustified military interventions. THere is nothing exceptional about the morality of the American people. The politicians are a component of the American people and one of the best educated components. In a democratic republic there is no reason to create a false distinction between the government and "people".

If Obama did impose some type of gun control, his actions would be reflecting the desires of about half of the American citizens (myself included); but I highly suspect that at most he'll introduce a few new regulations that ultimately amount to nothing.

It seems that you do not like the USA that much. I do like our discussions as we come from very different points of view and would like to continue them if you are willing, in a different forum.

I am always interested in opposing points of view especially ones that have a world view to them. I have intentionally left a lot unsaid in this forum for obvious reasons. I have a History background and obviously lived in other countries prior to immigrating to the USA.

Yes America is not innocent. my point is that in the 220 + years that it has been a "unified" country we have committed a lot of heinous acts, most of which have been corrected in some form or another. We have done in this country in a relatively short time what has taken 1000+ years in Europe, and they still have a way to go.

Re: Africa, slavery was perpetuated by opposing tribes. This has been going on for millenia, the Arabs then purchased the slaves from the victorious tribes, forced marched them to the coastal areas and sold them into slavery. Granted from that point they arrived in other countries, mostly South American and Cuba. The fact that we imported them into America is a problem.

That being said, when Slavery was abolished it did not end. There are many forms of slavery, one being your comments above. Yes we also essentially eliminated the Indian tribes, not our finest moment either. Can excuses be made for any of these events, sure, but that does not mean that they are Morally or ethically right. However, this country has come a long way to try to correct that.

Unfortunately today we have another form of slavery....we have millions of people (mostly black) on generational welfare. We have thrown trillions of dollars at this problen and solved nothing. Rather this unfortunate class have few if any propects of breaking that shackle. Liberal viewpoint is to keep throwing money and services at things, god knows so do their leaders. I have met Al Sharpton, Braithwaite Burke, Antonio Villagaraosa, Maxine Waters and others and I am not impressed. they have a vested interest in keeping an underclass alive as a constituency that will continue to vote for more welfare. This is not to say that is really what these millions of people want, but rather what they are now accustomed to. I know it is a terrible statement to make.

What does this all have to do with the subject of the forum? well everything.

These people are preyed upon by both armed criminals and political criminals. They are very much supressed by the nature of their circumstance. Most of these unfortunate people live in very large cities with very tough gun control policies, yet they have the highest crime statistics, much of which is committed with guns. These people do not have the right to defend themselves, because they cannot legally defend them selves in the cities that they live in as THAT RIGHT HAS BEEN TAKEN AWAY FROM THEM. They are preyed upon by criminals from their own races that have free acces to guns, a fact that will not change as criminals will always have acces to guns no matter how tough gun control laws are. The statistics prove this overwhelmingly.

I arrived in the USA with a suitcase and $ 1,000.00, I came from Africa and could have qualified for all types of government aid. Instead I chose to be independent and exercise self determination. I did not have generations of welfare upbringing that would impeade my own progress in the USA, however I could have just as easily fallen into the trap created by liberal largesse and welfare qualification.

I refuse to accept that this country is anything but amazing in the oppertunities that are offered and am proud to say that I am surrounded by black people who are successful and do not credit the Government or the liberal social welfare programs that throw money at everything. Infact they all state that the new form of slavery we have is as bad as the past when it comes to independence, self determination and education.

They also say without exception that these communities need to change their leaders as they have been enslaved by their own kind.

They believe that the constitution and the 2nd Amendment have empowered then to never again allow the government and corrupt politicians enslave them again.....Slavery it seems has many forms, The current government is hell bent on expanding the welfare class....Hense a new form of Slavery. If they can control you they own you!

There is a lot about the USA I do like: Diversity of people and climate, an abundance of cheap land, the vast expanses of natural beauty, high salaries, rule of law and constitutionalism, excellent higher education and the exceptional research and development that comes with it, and I cannot help but admire and be impressed by my country's incredible military might. These are all great things. I don't live in the USA right now, but the combination of high salaries, cheap land, and excellent higher education decisively draw me back to the USA.

But there are also many things that I don't like: Lack of history, a general shallowness of culture, excessive religiosity (especially in the south), the insularity and ignorance of the fly-over states, feminism and the decline of family values, crappy food, poor public transportation, a healthcare system that is poor by the standards of a high income country, and above all I dislike the the rigid ideologism of American exceptionalism that prevents the USA from being honest about its problems and learning from other countries.

I don't blame the USA for slavery. Slavery used to be widespread throughout the world. The East Asians are exceptional for not participating in the slave trade; but the Americans are not exceptionally good or bad for practicing slavery like most of their contemporaries. The timing of the USA's abolition of slavery was also not exceptional (it was after the British and French, and before the Brazilians and Ottomans). But I do think that comparing any modern day institution in the USA or other developed countries to slavery serves only to distort the reality of historical slavery. Modern welfare recepients are not bought and sold like cattle. They are not beaten by their masters when they disobey. They are not denied the right to learn how to read (as some American slaves were), rather they are given access to public education that is still better than in many other countries. Exploitation takes many forms; but the term 'slavery' should only be applied to actual slavery.

The fact that the USA committed genocide against the Native Americans, as opposed to enslaving them like the Spanish did in their colonies, was exceptionally bad. It is also undeniable that the USA benefitted from this. This along with slavery is something that we need to be honest about as Americans: we are benefitting from the sins of the Americans who came before us. I don't want us to have "White Guilt", but we shouldn't pretend we have some moral high ground over countries that are comitting their sins in the present rather than the past.

I don't believe welfare in-itself is the problem. Western European countries have welfare systems far more comprehensive than the USA does and they don't have a similar type of underclass. Rather, the problem is the way the systems are implemented. For example, as soon as a person on welfare saves up or earns enough money to bring them over the line that their welfare is dependent upon, the welfare gets taken away and they fall back into poverty. Education in USA draws too much funding from local property taxes and this perpetuates educational inequality by ensuring that poor communities have low quality schools and rich communities have high quality schools. These programs could be fixed, but it would be difficult and their are of course people benefitting from the status quo.

I don't think guns have too much to do with this all, but be honest and acknowledge that a large part of the reason why criminals in the USA have guns is because of how lax American gun laws are and the simple reality that if you live in a city that has strict gun laws you can just get a gun from elsewhere. Most criminals get their guns one of three ways: 1. They legally buy their gun from a gun dealer (by which I refer to anyone legally sells guns). 2. They buy their gun from someone else who legally bought the gun. 3. They steal the gun from someone else who legally bought the gun. The obvious solution is to restrict the ability of people to buy at least some kinds of guns (namely handguns).

New Orleans is the most dangerous major city in the USA and it has the kind of black underclass that you are talking about, but New Orleans and the rest of Lousianna have very lax gun control. If New Orleans and Lousianna had gun control laws similar to Chicago and Illinois there is a good chance that the homicide would be lower and closer to these other states.

The much larger problem than welfare and guns is the drug prohibition.

Ok, so perhaps those of us lefties socialists who voted in Obama are not quite up on the Constitution as the right is but can someone explain to me in plain and simple terms, why should the second amendment draw the line at just gun ownership, surly I can use it to argue as to owning something much better like an AT4 or a little helicopter gunship - what about an old MIG or a few cluster bombs or better still what stops me owning a nuclear bomb??

Can you also explain how the hell a group of yahoos in cowboy boots, in F150s are gonna put down the worlds most powerful army? Sure it'd be messy and a long drawn out civil war but how are your little pea shooter gonna take out a tank or a drone.

Where do you draw the line - if you're hand picking and interpreting parts of the Constitution then why draw the line as guns ??

The American revolution was fought with their own personal firearms, do you remember the minutemen? They certainly were able to beat a superpower. Do you really think we are winning in Afghanistan, we are fighting against the weakest enemy we have ever fought, no standing army, no navy, no air force, and we have been there almost a decade. And don't be so ignorant to think that every gun owner is driving around in F150's in cowboy hats, nice liberal stereotype of the rest of us though.

No, I don't really don't know your history, just as you don't know the history of the Boer War or the war in Angola BUT you still have not answered my question - really I'm curious?

Why just handguns, why stop there?

And what's the point of having a gun locked away in your house? Where I came from everyone who has a gun carries it at all times, one of the reasons why I left. Haven't we evolved past the need to overthrow tyrants, all of those who voted did and if you don't like it then vote for someone else or form a third party, no? The only solution I see to gun ownership is only allow women to have guns, they are far more level headed and less violent than men - that's my radical idea! Something has to change and i don't think armed guards in our kindergartens is the answer.

That's a tired argument that doesn't hold up with any understanding of individual liberty, endowed rights, and a constitutional protection thereof. First of all it would be nearly impossible for an individual to use the nuclear weapon, helicopter gunships, or MIGs without infringing on the rights of someone. Remember, the extents of one's rights end at the point they begin to infringe on those of another. I can fire my AR or M1A or 1911 or Glock all day without endangering another and without infringing upon the rights of another. There are some reasonable laws restricting ownership of items of mass destruction. Rightly applied, they protect the rights of all. Restriction of an AR simply because some people have used them inappropriately is not adequate justification to deny ownership. After all, in 2011 there were nearly 500 people killed with hammers, over 600 stabbed to death, over 12,000 killed by drunk drivers, and between 150k and 200k killed by medical mistakes. The historical lessons of oppression, mass murders by government, and other atrocities have one common element: gun control. I prefer to to take my chances while focusing on the damaging effects of removing every moral baseline from eduction, glamorous promotion of irresponsible gun use and violence in Hollywood, and the promotion of violence and gun use in music and video games. Not to mention the mass medicating of our children. Perhaps the discussion would have better results speaking realistically about those issues.

Each year, roughly two thirds of the homicides are caused by people using guns. Some of the homicides would have still occured, but when you consider that a gun is far more lethal than a knife (84% of heart injuries caused by guns are fatal compared to 30% of similar knife injuries; or considering that none of the 22 children stabbed in the recent Chinese "school knifing" died of their injuries), allows a person to kill or injure far more people at a greater range in a shorter period of time, and increases boldness by eliminating the significance of size differences; there is a safe bet that less guns (or even specifically less handguns because those are statistically by far the most likely to be used in crime) would mean less homicide. The fact that every other developed country has both less guns (especially less handguns) and less homicides, would also support this. Drunk driving is also a serious problem that needs to be addressed better; but that doesn't mean we should avoid the problem of gun violence.

"The historical lessons of oppression, mass murders by government, and other atrocities have one common element: gun control."

Nearly every modern country whether it be Sweden or the Soviet Union has gun control; so every action of any government whether it is good or ill is generally accompanied by gun control. That being said, many of the oppressive and fundamentalist monarchies in the Middle East, such as Saudi Arabia, have very little in the way of gun control. Yemen, an Arabic dictatorship, has the least gun control of any country on Earth. The mass murder of Native Americans in the USA was not accompanied by gun control.

"damaging effects of removing every moral baseline from eduction"

My job requires me to read High School English textbooks. They are generally pushing for a specific set of moral values: multicultural tolerance, racial and sexual equality, universal kindness, and reverence for democracy and the American political system. That is a solid moral baseline and I have been told that the American education system spends more time teaching political values than the education systems in Western European countries. CHildren are not taught to be Christian, but many of us Americans- such as myself- are not Christian and don't want our kids taught Christianity. Even if the school's did teach Christian values it would be rather difficult for them to juggle it in such a way as to make the Catholics and the various branches of Protestantism happy. That's what Sunday service is for.

"glamorous promotion of irresponsible gun use and violence in Hollywood, and the promotion of violence and gun use in music and video games."

Well, two issues with that: 1. The First Amendment. 2. The other western countries, especially the other English speaking countries, watch the same or similar movies and so on but do not have similar rates of homicide. That suggests a lack of correlation.

"Not to mention the mass medicating of our children."

That is a problem in and of itself, and that does seem to be distinctly American. I will agree with you that needs to be seriously addressed; but that doesn't meant mean that proliferation of handguns doesn't also need to be addressed.

Ok, so perhaps those of us lefties socialists who voted in Obama are not quite up on the Constitution as the right is but can someone explain to me in plain and simple terms, why should the second amendment draw the line at just gun ownership, surly I can use it to argue as to owning something much better like an AT4 or a little helicopter gunship, shite, what about an old MIG or a few cluster bombs??

Can you also explain how the hell a group of yahoos in cowboy boots, in F150s are gonna put down the worlds most powerful army? Sure it'd be messy and a long drawn out civil war but how are your little pea shooter gonna take out a tank or a drone.

Where do you draw the line - if you're hand picking and interpreting parts of the Constitution then why draw the line as guns ??

God, I'd love to believe that someday someone would try to usurp power or try to invade the US but I really don't see that coming and arguing that is the reason that we've had a democracy for so long is because of guns just doesn't fly. I just see this as an excuse to own a gun, and can you tell me that you've got a better chance of a better outcome if you're armed? In countries where everyone has a gun the baddies just shoot you in the face before they steal your car - what percentage of gun owners have to carry licenses in the US? Can you show me any stats that in a western country you're safe with a firearm?

You say that because of the state of the world right now. There is no guarantee that we will always be on top. There is no guarantee that the government will remain the way it is now (and plenty of examples of abuses of power by our own government throughout history).

It's also not the only reason to be armed. Personal protection is another.

Could you explain which countries you are referring to when you say that criminals just shoot first?

As for stats to prove that you're safe, what? Look, it is simple common sense. Do you have a greater chance to defend yourself with a firearm than without one? Yes, of course you do, therefore that makes you safer (note I said SAFER not SAFE, nothing in this world is safe). That's like asking whether you are safer being a trained fighter that lifts weights vs being a fat slob or puny weakling that's never been in a fight in his life. Of course you're safer, but neither one is a guarantee of safety/success.

But if you want stats, 8,583 homocides were committed in 2011 using firearms. In 2000 (most recent stat I could find a link to quickly) guns were used an estimated 989,883 times to defend the gunowner from crime (these stats are for civilians).

In our last test of the "right" to commit treason, the rebel states could field armies as good (or better, by some reckoning) as the central government could muster... at first. The Union proved better able to supply and reinforce its armies.

Today's wannabe warriors really have no idea what the U.S. military is capable of - it is orders of magnitude more powerful than it was in 1860's - and they also don't know just how fast modern battles use up bullets....

"As for stats to prove that you're safe, what? Look, it is simple common sense. Do you have a greater chance to defend yourself with a firearm than without one? Yes, of course you do, therefore that makes you safer (note I said SAFER not SAFE, nothing in this world is safe). That's like asking whether you are safer being a trained fighter that lifts weights vs being a fat slob or puny weakling that's never been in a fight in his life. Of course you're safer, but neither one is a guarantee of safety/success."

If you are a puny weakling with a white collar job who lives and works with other well-educated people who have never- or very rarely- been into fights in their lives, you are a lot safer than a trained fighter who lives in a bad part of a city and associates with people who place greater value on physical power than education.

Similarly, if you live in a place where the only people who have guns are the police you are a lot safer than in a place where everyone walks around with a gun on their side. If you were the only person to carry a gun, you would certainly be safer. If you were one of the only people without a gun, you would be at an obvious disadvantage. But if everyone carries a gun- compared to a disarmed society- everyone is in greater danger because it increases the probability of conflicts escalating to lethality.

The Daily Mail is not a reputable newspaper. It's a tabloid. That article intentionally avoids mentioning that different countries define violent crime differently and the UK uses a much broader definition of violent crime (even a threat or an insult is defined as violent crime in the UK) than most other countries. The real red flag is that asserts that the UK has a lower violent crime rate than South Africa. It is within the realm of possibility that the UK might have more violent crime than the USA; but South Africa has a homicide rate of 31.8 per hundred thousand people (among the highest in the world and 7.5 times as high as the USA) and impovershed and lawless masses. That paper is a joke.

You said before the reason why the USA has a greater homicide rate than the UK or the rest of Europe is because of cultural differences. I think you are largely right and your post has illustrated two aspects of the cultural differences that make the USA more dangerous than Europe:

1. Intense and myopic indivdualism: You are so focused on how to make yourself personally safer you completely lose sight of how to make society safer. But you conceal this oversight by committing the fallacy of composition.

2. Clinging to an outdated sense of warrior masculinity as reflected in your words "puny weakling that's never been in a fight." The USA, like western Europe, is a modern country with knowledge and service based economy. The USA is notable because of its innovation and the quality of its educational, technological, and financial institutions. Cowboys and trained fighters have little role or importance in our society except as sources of amusement for the people who actually play a productive role.

Ah but see now you are shifting the scales. You are weighting other factors to skew the logical result. All other things being equal, you are safer with a gun than without. And even someone in a good neighborhood can still be victimized.

Also, I have not lost sight of society. Here is a simple fact, society has guns. You may think it is ideal for everyone to be disarmed, but it will not happen. There are too many guns, no one knows where they all are, and even if the 2nd Amendment was repealed (not likely to happen), guns would be out there. So I am not losing sight of society, I am accepting that guns are part of society, something you are failing to do.

I am also accepting that getting rid of guns is not going to make society safer. There is no evidence to prove that it will. Even if all guns could be removed, all it means is that the strong can more easily prey on the weak. In countries without many guns, knives become the problem instead. People have killed each other for countless years before the rise of modern firearms.

As for your assertion that cowboys and trained fighters have little role to play in society, I beg to differ. Our police and armed forces could be considered trained warriors. Furthermore, those individuals will be better off if they need to defend themselves or their families (which may not necessarily be of benefit to society, but it is of benefit to themselves).

Having a gun isn't about masculinity. There isn't anything masculine about being able to defend yourself. It's a matter of self-preservation. And they're fun.

I get it, you don't like guns, but don't expect me not to be able to defend myself or my family because of your dislike and your misguided notions that society would be safer if I got rid of them.

If all else was equal, I'd probably be a lot safer if I was wearing heavy combat armor and carrying a fully automatic assault rifle; but if I was living in a society that allowed people to walk around like that I'd certainly be a lot less safe.

I don't dislike guns, I’ve had fun at shooting ranges and I really don’t consider shotguns or bolt-action rifles a problem in any way. I also think that it is reasonable and sensible for people living deep in the countryside to own shotguns to protect their families. I think the widespread availability of handguns is a problem and I can point to the fact that the majority of murders in the USA are caused by handguns and other developed countries- which have far harsher restrictions on handguns (and that includes Switzerland)- have far less murders. I think handguns need to be restricted just like automatic weapons or explosive. I hold no delusions that handguns can be eradicated, but they don’t need to be. I’d support the requirement of a sporting license to purchase a handgun and absolute ban on both open and concealed carry.

But that doesn’t mean that I dislike handguns; it is just an object. Rather, I dislike gun nuts and I dislike their vision of society. There is no reason why people in a well-educated and advanced society with a competent police force and judicial system need to carry around lethal weapons to fend off the predations of criminals. This isn’t idealism, it’s the fact that there is no other even reasonably developed country where things are like that. I grew up in a thoroughly disarmed suburb of Chicago. We didn’t need to worry about armed gangs traveling from the inner city to prey on the defenseless suburbanites. I’ve spent the past few years living abroad in disarmed countries (I’ll be returning to the USA next August), the lack of guns doesn’t turn knives into a problem*. The strong are not preying on the weak in France or Malaysia or China. Instead people can travel about their cities freely at all hours of the night without being concerned with anything more dangerous than pick pockets. This safety is undeniably partially because of the lack of widespread gun ownership and because of the existence of a professional police force (which are actually generally lower quality than the police in the USA) ; but it probably is also partially because of a cultural difference: it seems many Americans do not want to live in safe societies. Rather, they’d rather cling to the heroic belief that it is up to them to protect their family from vaguely defined “criminals” at all costs.

*Keep in mind that the school knifer in China failed to kill even one of the 22 students he cut. A gun shot wound to the heart has a 84% chance to be fatal but a knife wound to the heart has only a 30% chance.

I have two questions for you:
1. What do you perceive as the cultural elements of the USA that makes it more dangerous than other developed countries?
2.What is your background or location that makes you so concerned about the safety of your family?

Well to my knowledge there is nothing stopping you from wearing body armor if you so choose. You can buy it off of ebay. I'm not convinced that you'd be safer carrying an automatic assault rifle. Not every piece of equipment is equally effective in all situations. Sometimes a rifle is the right tool for the job. Sometimes an automatic weapon is. For what you describe, I don't think either is. But then again, I know how guns work and I don't just buy into Hollywood or media hype like a lot of the people posting on here do.

Now if you want to walk around with a semi-auto handgun, so long as you go through the proper licensing requirements, knock yourself out. I don't know why you think there should be a ban on concealed carry. Do some research. Most gun crime does not come from licensed CCW holders.

Your idealistic world where the police protect everyone is a pipe dream. First of all, I've lived in the inner city just blocks from a police station and seen all the violent crime that occurred anyway. Even in relatively peaceful areas, crime still happens. Just because you are statistically safer in one particular area doesn't mean you cannot become a victim. And when seconds count, those minutes you are waiting for the police might as well be an eternity. Hopefully you never have to experience it, but there is no guarantee that you won't.

And you cite China as an example? Really? A place where there have been plenty of school massacres using weapons like knives? That one incident you cited was a lucky one. There have been plenty of other cases where children DID die. Or how about the fact that crime went up after the UK instituted their gun control?

You say the safety is undeniably part of gun control? Not so. Some countries, like the UK, had a lower crime rate than the US when there was no gun control, yet instituting gun control did not stop their crime from increasing. The fact is that people have killed each other since the beginning of mankind. Guns may make it easier, but taking them away doesn't stop criminals.

In fact, given our insistance on freedom of information and speech as well as our poorly-monitored border, banning all guns in the US wouldn't keep guns out of the hands of criminals. Drug cartels in Mexico have all kinds of firepower (despite very strict gun laws) and their activity is crossing into the US more and more. Combine that with information on the internet showing peope how to make their own guns with simple tools (hell gangs made zip guns decades before the rise of the internet, but now you can find the schematics to make a full auto one), and I don't see any reasonable expectation that a gun ban would remove guns from the criminals, just the law-abiding citizens.

1. We have a culture of excess. Drugs and alcohol play a part. A lot of violence comes from inner city gangs (many of whom are not legal gun owners to begin with). Lack of easy access to mental health care and lack tracking of those with mental illness. We are also strongly independent with a dislike for overly strong government. And then there are subcultures that play into this, like the fact that in many inner city neighborhoods people will flat out refuse to cooperate with the police while at the same time complaining about how bad the crime is.

2. My background is a person with a family and my location is somewhere that they could be attacked. Seriously, there are plenty of cases of murders occurring in what people thought were "safe" neighborhoods. I don't need to be afraid to step outside my house at night to recognize that a potential danger still exists and take reasonable steps to mitigate that danger.

And of course this doesn't address that guns have a variety of uses, hunting, sporting, defense (both against criminals and in some cases against the government, look up the Battle of Athens).

Since people want an assault weapon ban to "save lives" how about we ban clubs, baseball bats, and hammers, as they are responsible for far more murders that these supposed assault weapons.

I do not believe that the US Military will take up arms against the population of the United States for the following reasons:
1) They would be fighting against many brothers in arms, and there are many retired vets that have the very same expertise to pilot, drive or operate complicated weapons systems.
2) If any US President gave such an order he/she would be more at risk than the civilian population.
3) It's not about a bunch of yahoos in F150's putting down the US army, it will never happen as the US army would not obey such an order.
4) It's not about owning tanks etc as private citizens.

However, it is about freedom, not from invasion by a foreign force(no one would be crazy enough to try)' but its about freedom from what could become a tyrannical government bent on dismantling our constitution and rights. I am not suggesting that the Obama Administration has this as an agenda item, but I do agree with you, why stop at the 2nd amendment, why not all of them?

Most amendments to the constitution have been constructive, the only truly negative one that I can think of is the 18th (Prohibition) which was subsequently repealed by the 21st Amendment. Start comprehensive gun bans, registration (AKA confiscation) and turning legal gun owners into criminals and we have a real problem.

I notice that the politicians say they want a balanced and comprehensive package to ensure another Sandy Hook never happens, however the only things being discussed is banning guns. What about mental health, media outlets glorifying violence, Rap Music, violent video games the list is too numerous to mention....BTW, try to limit the media and Hollywood liberals and they will cite their 1st Amendment rights to make violent movies, games etc.

So lets start at the 1st amendment and just repeal or modify them all. What will we have left.....the very same system that the framers of the constitution wanted to prevent.

I would suggest that you came to the USA for similar reasons to me, to get the heck out of Africa. In my experiences living in Malawi, Mozambique, Angola and mostly in Rhodesia/Zimbabwe I can appreciate the freedoms we have here in the USA.

This maniac that committed the Sandy Hook massacre tried to buy a gun legally and was declined by the background check system that is currently in place....FUNNY HOW THIS FACT IS IGNORED!!!!!. The fact that he obtained his firearms illegally by killing his mother and using another persons legally owned guns to commit his crimes seems to be lost in the rhetoric of calling for a ban on guns, magazines, ammunition and any thing else that they can throw in to the mix.

Of course there is no place that is absolutely safe, but the idea is to make places relatively safe. Western Europe and East Asia (including China) are safe relative to the USA. This can be measured in homicide rate.

Likewise, people will always find ways to kill each other; but the idea is to make it more difficult for people to kill each other. A zip gun is substantially less dangerous than a proper gun; especially if the proper gun can be converted into a full automatic. If you disagree, I invite you to give up your guns for a zip gun.

The UK began to implement gun control in 1903. The age before gun control was quite different from today. The 1997 amendment to the Firearms Act probably did not change much relative to the 1988 amendment because gun ownership was already very low; but today the UK does have a marginally lower homicide rate than it did in 1997.

Virtually all of the guns possessed by criminals in the USA ultimately originated at legitimate gun shops. The criminals either buy the gun legally, have someone else buy it for them, or steal the guns from the original purchaser. If you restrict the gun shops in the USA, you would ultimately restrict the ability of criminals to gain access to guns.

In Mexico, the criminals generally either smuggle guns in from the USA or purchase the guns from corrupt members of Mexico's military or police force. How high do you think is the probability of members of the USA's armed forces selling their guns to gangs in the USA? This doesn't happen in Europe and it doesn't even happen in China despite having corruption and a standard living comparable to Brazil.

Organized gangs will always be able to access some guns, but the tight restrictions on guns in Chicago- which can easily be bypassed simply by buying guns in a different state- has already resulted in an estimated only 30% of the gang members in the city having guns. The vast majority of criminals have no connections to organized crime and would be far less likely to have guns if there was greater control. As you said yourself, in countries without guns the problem becomes knives. This is the truth and knives are a much smaller problem as be seen in both lower homicide rates in successfully disarmed countries and the general attitudes and habits of the citizens (i.e. young women traveling alone late at night in inner cities).

I think handguns are the main problem, not assault rifles. My only concern about them is the ability of some people to convert them to full-auto. Hunting and the sort are great; hunters should be able to get licenses and buy shotguns and bolt-action hunting rifles. Is there any reason why you believe that a shotgun would be insufficient for protecting your home and family?

Americans drink less alcohol per capita than the Europeans. The only illegal drug commonly used in the USA is cannabis and that generally makes people less violent (of course the problem is the violence connected to the prohibition). About a quarter of Americans are diagnosed with mental illness. This fact alone suggests that access to psychologists is not too bad in the USA. Would you really want the government to keep track of all of these people? Put every citizen who was diagnosed with ADD or whatever else on a list?

"A zip gun is substantially less dangerous than a proper gun; especially if the proper gun can be converted into a full automatic. If you disagree, I invite you to give up your guns for a zip gun."

Not arguing that, but you can build automatic guns. Also, converting a gun into an automatic one is already very much illegal. I don't think it actually happens very often, either.

"The 1997 amendment to the Firearms Act probably did not change much relative to the 1988 amendment because gun ownership was already very low; but today the UK does have a marginally lower homicide rate than it did in 1997. "

Well you are doing better than most gun-control people by acknowledging that the UK was far different from the US even before their institution of gun control. However, even though their homocide rate is marginally lower, they have lots of problems with other crimes.

"Virtually all of the guns possessed by criminals in the USA ultimately originated at legitimate gun shops."

Agreed. However, I think the answer to this is not to punish the majority of gun owners that do nothing wrong, but to simply regulate private gun sales, require background checks for everyone. Sure you don't eliminate theft, but I bet it would be a good start.

"In Mexico, the criminals generally either smuggle guns in from the USA or purchase the guns from corrupt members of Mexico's military or police force. "

Actually the majority of their guns do not get smuggled from the US. They do get guns from Mexico's military but they also get a lot of them from South America.

However, while I don't see a lot of US military selling weapons to gangs, we do have a porous border with Mexico (which BTW has strict gun laws) and I do see them filling a new niche by smuggling guns over the border.

"Organized gangs will always be able to access some guns, but the tight restrictions on guns in Chicago- which can easily be bypassed simply by buying guns in a different state- has already resulted in an estimated only 30% of the gang members in the city having guns"

And yet Chicago is still a very violent city, as are many other cities with strict gun control.

"I think handguns are the main problem, not assault rifles."

True. However, I don't think that means they should be eliminated. I'm sure there is a middle ground there.

"My only concern about them is the ability of some people to convert them to full-auto."

How often does that actually happen? And why couldn't it be done with any other semi-auto weapon, including a hunting rifle or a handgun? An assault weapon is nothing more than a hunting rifle dressed up in a funny suit.

"Is there any reason why you believe that a shotgun would be insufficient for protecting your home and family? "

Well for one you aren't going to carry a shotgun around (and I do believe that we should keep CCW permits, I don't see any evidence that they are the real problem). Two, the best weapon is one you are familiar and comfortable with. My wife prefers a shotgun, but I prefer a handgun. I believe it would be harder for an attacker that gets close to take the handgun than to take a larger weapon (longer weapons if you are close enough you just push the barrel to the side and get in too close for them to use it).

I have a friend that prefers a carbine (military and former law enforcement guy, he is comfortable with it and the .223 was identified in an FBI study as an ideal round for urban environments as it can shoot through light cover and put people down, but is less likely to go through a wall and hit someone that you did not intend).

"The only illegal drug commonly used in the USA is cannabis and that generally makes people less violent (of course the problem is the violence connected to the prohibition)."

Well personally I hope the trend in Colorado spreads and the feds eventually lift the prohibition on it.

"About a quarter of Americans are diagnosed with mental illness. This fact alone suggests that access to psychologists is not too bad in the USA."

A couple issues here. 1) Some people get diagnosed but don't get real treatment because of lack of insurance to cover it. 2) It's about more than access, you have to also reduce the stigma involved.

"Would you really want the government to keep track of all of these people? Put every citizen who was diagnosed with ADD or whatever else on a list?"

It should depend on the severity of the illness. Some people are perfectly functional. It should be simple. If a psychologist believes that you may be dangerous to yourself or others, he registers you in a federal system and that prevents you from getting a gun. If you do want a gun and you are in that system, a psychologist has to examine you and remove you from the list to verify that you are no longer a threat and most likely will not become one again.

Ultimately, I think we agree on a key point: that guns and gun violence are part of the American society and that is not going to change.

I think this is a bad thing and I think this could be solved by ending the drug prohibition, sending the feds against organized crime, and banning handguns (all in that order). But that is never going to happen because there are too many groups that have vested interests in maintaining the status quo.

I will point out that Chicago has been a violent city for at least a hundred years and this is because Chicago has by far the highest gang membership of any major American city. Chicago won't be a safe city until the organized crime is brought under control, but that is not going to happen because the corruption is systematic and the Mayor's office (or at least the Daley family) is deeply involved. If there was unrestricted access to guns, the city would probably be a lot worse.

Cities generally implement strict gun control when there is already a lot of crime. It accomplishes very little because it is simple to drive to another state to buy a gun.

Where do gangsters get automatic weapons? It is my understanding that they come from converted semi-automatics. If I'm wrong, correct me.

I think there should be universal health insurance and that should cover mental health to at least some extent. But I think tracking people with mental illness is a bad idea. It is very easy for a government to manipulate that by branding dissidents mentally ill. After Kruschev abolished the gulags in the USSR, mental hospitals gradually became the new de facto gulags. If a patient makes a comment about hurting other people, the psychologist already needs to report him. The Adam Lanza guy, who didn't buy his own gun anyways, never would have been put on a list because people with his disorder- Aspergers- are statistically less likely to commit crimes than 'ordinary' people. I think everyone should require a basic psychological examination to get a license to buy a gun.

I remain curious about where you live that you desire to carry a hand gun around.

I agree on drug prohibition. Particularly for marijuana, which is safer than alcohol, it is unnecessary and only empowers the gangs and cartels.

As far as mental health, I do see your point and it's a valid one.

"Where do gangsters get automatic weapons? It is my understanding that they come from converted semi-automatics. If I'm wrong, correct me. "

Where are you getting this information from? For that matter, how often do gangsters use automatics. I've been in the inner city before and I don't ever recall anyone using an automatic. However, I have noticed that a lot of people who have never used a gun have difficulty distinguishing between the two.

Also, ATF regulations require that semi-auto weapons of automatic weapons be modified to make them harder to convert to full auto (the lower receivers have extra material added to them to prevent you from simply dropping in the components from the full auto versions).

There are kits that claim to be legal full auto conversion kits. Obviously they aren't truly full auto kits or else they wouldn't be legal. All they do is pull the trigger for you, but I know some people that tried them and they all said it makes the gun jump like crazy and that it is even harder to aim and control than a true auto weapon, and the rate of fire is still no faster than you pulling the trigger really fast (since that is all the kit is doing).

"Cities generally implement strict gun control when there is already a lot of crime. It accomplishes very little because it is simple to drive to another state to buy a gun. "

Both true statements. Of course, given how easily drugs come over the border, it's not hard to imagine that the Mexican cartels would get into the arms-dealing business if firearms were to be outlawed. Same effect as what you describe above, except it would be on a larger scale.

"I remain curious about where you live that you desire to carry a hand gun around."

It really doesn't matter. Crime happens everywhere. Just because I'm not in a high crime area doesn't mean crime doesn't happen. And if I am lucky and crime doesn't come to me, well then that gun doesn't have to get used. So if something happens, I may be happy to have a gun. If nothing happens, I'm no worse off for having it.

If you consider the US a "free" country you are sorely mistaken. Free people don't require a permission slip from the state in order to travel, work, or anything else. Free people would never register their newly born children with the state. Free people would never ask the state if it were proper for them to marry. Free people would never be required to hold a license in order to hunt or fish from public property. Free people would never be forced by the violent state to enroll their children in a state run school. Free people would never be forced to do the state's accounting for its payroll thefts.

Unfortunately you don't seem to have even the most basic understanding of freedom. Liberty it seems is foreign to you and scary in that it's unfamiliar to your experience thus far. I suggest you open your mind to human dignity and respect for the natural laws which govern us all.

Freedom is the lack of state oppression. Not state commanded armed forces. No more "newspeak".

The things I mentioned are fairly new additions to the American experience. By my reasoning most Americans haven't been free since the war among the states and some never.

The big difference between modern serfs and those who struggled before, is that the slaves of old knew their station in life and suffered no illusion of self ownership. Today man cheers for his own enslavement.

Bullstuff. The constraints of modern society are not tantamount to slavery. And the constraints chafe us all - no man cheers about it. We (most of us) understand the necessary trade-offs of civilization, and know we're better off. Those who don't... well, there's a definition of a miser: A man who knows the cost of everything, and the value of nothing.

It's true many aspects of our country are far from free and it's becoming more constricted all the time however in comparison with other countries I'd say we are among the freest of the free and I am happy to be an American... would't want to live anywhere else in this world,

It's true many aspects of our country are far from free and it's becoming more constricted all the time however in comparison with other countries I'd say we are among the freest of the free and I am happy to be an American... would't want to live anywhere else in this world,

If you consider the US a "free" country you are sorely mistaken. Free people don't require a permission slip from the state in order to travel, work, or anything else. Free people would never register their newly born children with the state. Free people would never ask the state if it were proper for them to marry. Free people would never be required to hold a license in order to hunt or fish from public property. Free people would never be forced by the violent state to enroll their children in a state run school. Free people would never be forced to do the state's accounting for its payroll thefts.

Unfortunately you don't seem to have even the most basic understanding of freedom. Liberty it seems is foreign to you and scary in that it's unfamiliar to your experience thus far. I suggest you open your mind to human dignity and respect for the natural laws which govern us all.

Freedom is the lack of state oppression. Not state commanded armed forces. No more "newspeak".

You can not win by trying to pervert the meaning of the 2nd amendment. The fact is that we have the RIGHT to keep and bear arms. We are not granted a right by a government, or some misfit, liberal, imbecile like yourself. Our rights are from our creator. The 2nd amendment, however considered, is just a written guarantee from the government conceding to that right of the people to keep and bear arms. You can twist around the meaning all you want but the fact is that we have our guns and it's up to YOU to have the gonads to come take them. So drop that pen and get at it!

The NRA whines endlessly about the slippery slope erosion of the 2nd amendment. I posit that the opposite is true. The American public has allowed the NRA to push us down the slippery slope of lost personal security and allowed the NRA terrorists to intimidate us with evermore draconian security risks in the name of constitutional rights.

Where are our rights to be in a safe environment free of gun violence? To be free of intimidation from an angry gun carrying neighborhood thug?

Let me posit a layman's legal thought I've had about the 2nd amendment.
"A well REGULATED Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State. the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed"

Note in Article 1 Section 8, it reads:
"To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress,"

The body of the Constitution delegates to Congress the right to organize and disciplining the Militia. So what is the constitutional problem with Congress regulating the licensing of gun owners (as if in the Militia), registration of all firearms (arming) and prohibition of arms that are by overwhelming evidence more destructive to society than protective?

Let's see... Germany, 6 million or so; China, unknown millions; Cambodia, millions; Congo, hundreds of thousands; USSR, millions; Middle East, unknown thousands. I'd say that gun control has a much greater history of death and destruction than gun freedom. If scared people are going to tell me that I can't own an AR, then someone needs to tell them that they can't hire body guards, can't own houses larger than needed, can't own multiple cars, motorcycles, atv, campers, can't own a car that drives faster than 70 mph (those alone kill 30k people a year), and especially that they can't consume more than a federal set standard for calories per day. I prefer to be somewhat free as opposed to being treated as a subject that can't be trusted.

Agreed 100%. I don't see any evidence that assault weapon bans work, much less overwhelming evidence.

People say cars are different, because they aren't used to intentionally kill people. So what? If you claim to be interested in saving lives, then it should be about the number of lives it saves. Cars are used for transportation, but you don't need a car that can go 120mph to get to work or go grocery shopping. Let's ban all two-door cars, anything other than trucks or SUVs that has more than a 4-cylinder engine, and install governors in all vehicles to prevent them from going faster than 70mph.

You don't have a right to live in a perfectly safe environment. There is no perfectly safe environment. Even if you somehow succeed in taking away our firearms, you still won't feel safe, and you'll next complain about how people with baseball bats/knives/tire irons are intimidating you.

You still live in a dangerous world, as much as you are shielded from that fact. Grow up and quit deluding yourself.

Please, there are absolutes in this world. If we can reduce violence by 50%, we have made great progress. Mayor Bloomberg has reduce gun deaths in New York by some very aggressive programs including restricting gun ownership. That I can live with.

BTW, I have never heard of a drive by knifing. Yes I have been in some very threatening situations that I was able to keep my distance of 10 feet or so to avoid bodily harm.

So as my Korean war buddy, Jim Brady from Chicago used to say, "The only fight I ever lost was when I slipped going around the corner."

"Even if you somehow succeed in taking away our firearms, you still won't feel safe, and you'll next complain about how people with baseball bats/knives/tire irons are intimidating you."

And that is exactly what is happening in many countries with strict gun control laws. The criminals shift to knives, and so now there are places where knives are being restricted. They don't seem to realize you need to go after the criminal, not the weapon.

The Founders who wrote and later adopted the Second Amendment didn't see the militia as something separate from the state. It is a state institution, and should the militia be deployed against the Federal government, it will be at the direction of the state/s. It is not the "militia movement" of somewhat-addled men waddling around the woods in camouflage with semiautomatics and dreaming of heroically resisting an American Hitler.

But that is the reason the Founders adopted the Second Amendment. Whether one thinks the militia has a place in modern warfare or not, preserving the potential for a citizen militia is the purpose of that Amendment. Madison, the chief author of it, introduced twelve proposed amendments to the First Congress (ten of which became the Bill of Rights and eleven of which were eventually adopted) to meet a promise he'd made while running for his House seat to create a Bill of Rights and allay the fears that some of his fellow countrymen had of the powers delegated to the new Federal government. Madison, who was also instrumental in crafting the Constitution and seeing it adopted, did not want to alter or change those powers before the new system was employed. His chosen method when it came to the militia powers granted to Congress was to protect the right of the people to keep and bear arms, thus ensuring that a state, concerned for its own security, could raise a new militia from its population even if Congress had nationalized its old one, or if Congress chose to use its militia powers to disparage and diminish it.

Madison didn't see any of the Bill of Rights as having any effect. They didn't alter or abolish any power delegated to the Federal government, nor did they impact any power delegated to the government. He saw them as nothing more than a palliative for those concerned about the Constitution. The Federal government, in Madison's view, had no legitimate authority to abridge any right protected in the Bill of Rights.

As we go step by step away from a Constitutional Republic towards a democracy/mobacracy I find it hard to believe that there can never be another revolution where freedom loving people can never try again, maybe providing a better way to preserve freedom rather than depending on a seemingly more and more ignorant electorate to vote for freedom over their own wants at the expense of others.